


Breaking Apart

by Aaronlisa



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: F/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 14:39:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4439654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaronlisa/pseuds/Aaronlisa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alpha has a few truths for Priya about Tony. (Set post-series but prior to the events in the Epitaph episodes)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Apart

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Dollhouse belongs to Joss Whedon and compamy. The song at the beginning is "Until We Bleed" by Lykke Li. 
> 
> Prompts: Written for 500themes (#235 and the edges blur) and fivebyfiction (truth)

_I'm naked  
I'm numb  
I'm stupid   
I'm staying   
And if Cupid's got a gun, then he's shootin'_

 

"And why would I lie to you? What would be the point of it?" Alpha gently asks. 

He keeps his hands to himself but she knows that he wants to touch her, to lay claim to her. There's a part of her that wonders why when they both know that his obsession for Echo still grips him tightly. 

Priya shakes her head. She doesn't know why he would like to her but his words have left her unsettled and she's desperate to hang onto what she had believed in only minutes ago. She wraps her arms around herself, unsure of what to believe in, of who to trust anymore. Things were simpler in the dollhouse. 

"When he leaves here, he has his team call him Victor. He doesn't want to be Tony anymore. They're all trying to find a way to be dolls again since they can't handle the multiple personalities like Echo can," Alpha tells her. 

"Or like you." 

"Or like me," Alpha replies with a nod. "He doesn't want to be your Tony anymore." 

"No! He loves me and the baby," Priya says, even though the words are hollow in her mouth. "He wouldn't do this to us, to me." 

Alpha reaches out and touches her arm. His eyes are gentle but she can't tell what his motivation for this is. Everyone knows what Tony and his team of soldiers are doing, even she knows just how much they embrace the tech that they're supposed to be fighting against. All that Alpha is doing is making sure that she can't believe the lies that she tells herself or the ones that Tony tells her. 

"They have a hive-like mentality, Victor and his team. Echo refused to allow him to go as far as to use Rossum's tech that would truly link them together as a hive but she hasn't forbidden him from finding a way to use the tech to become super soldiers." 

Priya remembers how Echo and she had saved him from Scytheon. She remembers the nightmares that he had and there's a part of her that knows that as much as Tony was repulsed by that tech, there was a part of him that relished it. Still she tries to fight against what Alpha is telling her. 

"Echo knows how dangerous the tech is, especially for us," Priya says. 

"She's fighting a war that we're losing, can you blame her for turning a blind eye here and there when it might just give her the slightest edge of an advantage?" 

"She wouldn't let Tony do this to himself." She doesn't need to include herself or the baby in that sentence but she knows Alpha heard them just the same. 

"Priya, Echo can't stop him and even if she could she needs Victor more." 

"His name is Tony!" Priya exclaims. "He's not Victor anymore." 

She lets Alpha enfold her in his arms. She melts into his embrace as she cries against her chest. This is Alpha and she knows that he is a master manipulator but too much of what he's told her is infused with the truth that she had willfully been blind to. Tony has been distant with her and the baby ever since they left the safety of the dollhouse. 

"He refuses to be birth marked. Paul asked him and his team before their last mission to be birth marked and he flat out refused saying that it'd cause too much confusion." 

Priya has had the birth mark since before the thought of leaving the dollhouse was nothing more than a pipe dream. It anchors her, reminds her of who she is and who she isn't. She shivers when Alpha's hands slip underneath the thin cotton of her shirt and his fingers find the letters of her name. For a moment she loses herself in the sensation of Alpha's fingers tracing the letters, spelling her name out against her skin. 

Tony never touches her birth mark. He's refused to get his own done and his arguments have always fallen flat but she's never been strong enough to push the issue. Tony had argued that he knows who he is without a tattoo to tell him that and she can't help but wonder if the man she loves wants to be himself or if he'd rather be Victor more. 

When Alpha's hands move up higher, Priya doesn't resist, instead her hands tighten in the material of his shirt. There's a part of her that wants to wound the man she loves, the part of him that belongs to her whether he's Tony or Victor or anyone else. 

"You should see how Victor and Kilo act when they are together," Alpha tells her. "I don't doubt that whether he's Victor or Tony that he loves you but I think that he sees it as a weakness. Kilo is a soldier and she understands him where you don't. She doesn't make him be Tony." 

Somehow the edges begin to blur for her. Priya has seen how close Tony is to Kilo (she's always refused to respond to her real name.) There's a part of her that is fueled by the desire to hurt Tony, to build a wall between them before he can finish building his own wall. She knows that she still loves him regardless of who he is, just as she knows that the distance between them first grew after the Attic. 

Priya knows that he (Tony or Victor) can still feel the weight of her blood on his hands from having to kill her to set her free from the Attic. And she knows that Alpha is manipulating her for his own purposes. She thinks about asking him what he is seeking to gain but she's tired of feeling unloved, of feeling worthless, of feeling so lonely even when Tony is with her in the same room. When Alpha shifts his body, Priya moves so that she's kissing him. 

Alpha pulls back and silently asks her if she's sure that she wants this and she nods her agreement at him. There are far too many secrets between her and Tony now. The baby that was unexpected has only served to tear them further apart because of Tony's desperation to save her and the baby.

Alpha's touch is gentle as if he's afraid that he'll break her and it makes her forget about Tony and everything else. She knows that it's only momentary that later, she'll be torn apart by guilt and shame. The secrets that Alpha has exposed to her now will tear her heart to pieces as she watches Tony with new suspicions. But for now she gives into what Alpha is offering. They don't belong to one another but the ones that they do belong to have been too busy trying to save the world that they have rejected both Alpha and Priya. 

 

((END))


End file.
